MANY IRREGULARITIES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18236, 3 November 1933, Page 11

MANY IRREGULARITIES

CHILDREN’S COURT AUCKLAND REVELATIONS (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. A remarkable series of irregularities in the jurisdiction of the Children’s Court in Auckland was disclosed at I lie Supreme Court to-day, when an tipplication for the release of an 18-year-old girl, Annie Lillian Matheson, from ML Eden gaol, was granted. Mr Justice Smith ordered that she be discharged immediately. The proceedings revealed, first, that the girl was remanded from the Magistrate’s Court to the Children’s-Court foj&a longer period than the law provides; secondly, she was brought before the Children’s Court upon an information instead of a complaint; thirdly, no summons was issued for her appearance; fourthly, she was not in court when the charge was preferred against her; and finally, the court exceeded its jurisdiction wheu it committed her to a Borstal institute for three years. During the course of the proceedings, the judge said: “The Children’s Court, when it chooses, can exercise the powers of a Star Chamber. It is plain that it,must act strictly within its jurisdiction. It cannot commit to a Borstal institute, its powers being limited to committal to the charge of the welfare officer. Those proceedings have disclosed an extraordinary state of affairs. The committal order 1 was made entirely without jurisdic-' tion, and all subsequent proceedings' were mill and void.”